Social Wayne on the Social Web by Wayne Sutton | Archive

Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

Posted on January 11, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

9 practical ways to use Google Wave for business

google_wave_logo.jpg (1000×800)

It goes without saying that to some Google Wave was one of most overhyped technologies to launch in 2009. From being called a failed product to users widely complaining about how to just use the platform. And we’re not talking about just the average users, even some of the social web elitist such as Kevin Rose who tweeted “playing w/google wave, what does this do exactly?” and Robert Scoble who tweeted “I don’t like Google Wave and am avoiding using it until they make major UI fixes.”

Other complaints about Google Wave have been that there is no real value to using it over other web services such as instant messenger. Plus there were hundreds of other blog posts asking will Google Wave replace Gmail/email or Facebook and what are Google’s long term plan for Google Wave. I don’t have all the answers to satisfy the frustrated Google Wave user, but I do know how I’m using Google Wave and I love it. I use Google Wave daily at Twine Interactive on various projects, and Lawrence Ingraham and I use it while working on TriOut. I also use Google Wave for event planning and blogging. How you ask? Here are 8 practical ways to use Google Wave for business.

1. Collaborative note taking:
Using Google Wave for collaborative note taking can happen in meetings or conference calls. Often I find myself taking notes in Google Wave then adding other team members to the wave to review notes and add feedback from the meeting.

2. Crowdsourcing conference notes:
Let’s say you’re at a conference and there are multiple sessions at one time that you want to attend. You can make a conference wave and ask a friend to take notes in Google Wave for the other session and add you to the wave. Also you can ask others in other sessions to add their notes to the wave too by just adding them to the wave.

Wayne (5) - Google Wave
3. Task List for application or project development
It’s easy to make a task list inside of Google Wave, but the best part about it is that you can easily have conversations about each task, including listing marking pros and cons of the task.

4. Shareable resource library
With Google Wave it’s easy to create an information list. You may already be part of a Google Wave that is full of links on how to us Google Wave. If you want to create a list of links about a project, just add the links to the wave and add other team members to the wave. Everyone added to the wave can also add their own links to the wave.

5. Unclutter your inbox
If you’re like me, you receive too many emails every day. Even though I do belive Google Wave will “someday” replace Gmail, you can have colleagues cut down on email and just contact you via Google Wave.

6. Low risk internal communication platform
Are you looking for a simple inexspenive way to communicate with all of your employee or coworkers? Or to share files with everyone in your department. Just create an internal Google Wave company policy and Google Wave can handle the rest as a bare bones minimal platform.

7. Customer feedback forum
If you’re designing a prototype or uploading a beta release of a product and would like to organize all of your feedback about various versions of the files, then Google Wave is a perfect platform to handle inline feedback. With postings in Google Wave that look like threaded comment, it’s easy to follow who addressed each comment.

8. Event planning:
Recently I was planning a social media club meeting in Raleigh, NC. Instead of emailing my partners I made a Google Wave with the details and added the team to the wave. I not only helped unclutter my inbox, but it served the purpose of our entire communication process by making sure we were prepared for the the event.

Wayne (1) - Google Wave
9. Lunch orders
Have you ever had to take a lunch order from your coworkers and you’re stuck being the one to write all of the orders down? Well no more. Just create a Google Wave and ask each one of them to add their order to Google Wave and your simple, self serve lunch order is done. As adoption increases, we’ll add restaurants to Google Wave to fulfill our lunch orders.

Basically if you have a project and you need to have some sort of collaboration, you can find a use for Google Wave for the project.

What are some of the ways you are using Woogle Wave in your business?

Feel free to add me to your Google Wave contacts by using: waynesutton@googlewave.com

Posted on December 21, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

Location based apps by the numbers & the month @FourSquare passed them all, but why?

As we get closer to 2010 one of the items I’m sure you have read on probably every end of the year predictions post is that location based apps are going to be big in 2010. Locations based apps are not new for example, Brightkite has been around since 2005 and was clearly growing as one of the leaders in the location based market. I’m not sure who came next but soon to launch was Whrrl, Loopt, and now we have Gowalla and Foursquare. Foursquare has been all of the buzz latley and by looking at the compete.com numbers they’re on one roller coster ride up the vistors chart.

I was told in August is when they switch domains from playfoursqare.com to foursquare.com but regardless from September to now Foursquare their traffic growth has been amazing. Moving into 2010 not only Foursquare but all of the location based apps will have tons of competition with new apps launching such as stalqer, nextstop, TriOut. I’m sure more to launch in 2010 as looking back on a 2008 post from Read Write Web saying Location-Based Social Networking to Generate $3.3 Billion by 2013.

Besides all of the buzz as being labeled as the next Twitter by the early adopters and social media enthusiast what do think is the reason for Foursquare recent growth?

Posted on December 1, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

Google Wave review part 2: screencast, thoughts, examples and resources.

As Google Wave invites continue to spread like wildfire and more than just geeks are starting to explore Google Wave, I’ve seen an increase in the “what are your thoughts on Google Wave” questions. I’m humbled that individuals are interested in my thoughts about Google Wave, I’m also seeing a lot of consultants ask the same question, to see if I’m using Google Wave for any business/marketing use. Regardless, after spending a few days over the weekend to clean out my Google Wave inbox and do some research myself, I’m made a social bookmarking group of Google Wave resources. Also I recorded a video screen cast about how I’m using Google Wave now. Back to what are my thoughts on Google Wave and how I’m using it; here’s a list below.

I think Google Wave will replace Gmail in the years to come
I think Google Wave will be used by companies internally for communication and collaboration in the future
I think Google Wave will be a part of Google’s social network that will include Google Reader
I’m using Google Wave to collaborate on projects, where I upload files and brainstorm ideas in real-time with others
I think Google Wave will become more popular to use for note taking at conferences
I think Google Wave will be used to for training and webinars
I think Google Wave will find use in the media / entertainment industry but I don’t know how yet besides communication or a commerce buy and sale music system
I think Google Wave will become more social by integrating with Facebook and Twitter
I think Google Wave will be used as a video chat solution
I think Google Wave should be used with Google Chrome on Mac and windows for best performance.
I think there’s a slim chance we’ll see a Google Wave/ Chrome gadgets/extensions app store or just all listed on Google Gadgets site
I think I could be wrong about all of the above.
I think it’s to early to put limits on Google Wave or predict all the uses for it.

If you’re new to Google Wave, I would start here: The Complete Guide to Google Wave is a comprehensive user manual by Gina Trapani with Adam Pash.

You can add me as a contact on Google Wave by entering: waynesutton@googlewave.com

Now, it’s your turn. What are your thoughts on Google Wave and how are you using it?

Posted on November 11, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

18 social web and technology related trends that will shape 2010

2010

The new year is approaching, and we’re already starting to see blog posts looking back at the big trends in 2009 and posts predicting what will be big in 2010. David Armano recently wrote Six Social Media Trends For 2010, and you should read it. As we move forward into 2010, and social media continues to mature, this won’t be the only hot topic from 2009 that everyone will be blogging and tweeting about in 2010. I’m no psychic, but here are a few trends and concepts that I think we’ll see maturing and growing in popularity in 2010:

Real-Time Search will become uniform and standardized:
Mainstream media will discover and use sites such as Cliqset, Collecta, Topsy, and LazzyFeed. These sites and others will create partnerships with other established web properties.
There will be a rise in social media monitoring and measuring platforms
More apps will think “local”:
As Twitter works on its GEO API, and as TriOut, Whrll, Brightkite, Foursquare, Gowalla and Loopt battle for mobile location based app supremacy, Google is quietly making Google Latitude more useful. I think we’ll see a lot of web and mobile apps implement location based services.
The return of video:
Video ads are taking off, after ayear of being pushed to the back corner by tweets and status updates. Video content and online video aggregation sites such as Boxee, Jinni and Clicker will be huge (see number 9).
Traditional Media will continue to struggle:
Here’s my two cents on this – I wish traditional media would focus more on building trust and value and stop trying to be first. Traditional media should realize that news comes from people; not the other way around
Smart Brands will become more creative, but they will continue to fail to listen to their customers until it’s too late
Google vs. Twitter vs. Facebook:
Will someone just buy the one in the middle?
Twitter will start making money
iPhone/Apple “iTablet” vs Everyone:
The iPhone 4th Generation will be nice, but when Apple releases the iTablet, it will be an ebook reader and video device that will change the game for everyone, allowing people to have mobile video chat, and the ability to create and watch videos on the go.
Hardware will become more social:
We’ll see more TVs, gaming platforms, and cars with social capabilities. Example: a weight scale that tweets…but why?
Mobile Providers will provide us with faster data speeds:
We want 4G and we want it now.
Content/People/Information filtering becomes easier:
As with Twitter List and Facebook friend groups, we’ll start filtering how we intake information from our networks.
There will be more tech/social media conferences than you can blink at:
But you should attend this one. ( http://socialmediabusinessforum.com)
Augmented Reality will be the social media of 2009:
I think augmented reality will really start to grow in 2011.
Conversation tools will remain the same:
If you look at it, we have email, tweets, instant messenger, sms and various inboxes on social networks. Google Wave is a year or two off, and various platforms will launch to mash up the conversation channels like Gist. But in the end, most will stick to Outlook and web based email, such as Gmail.
The Google social networking puzzle will be solved:
Google has Google Reader, Wave, Chat, Gmail, Latitude and their OS. Put it all together and you have one powerful social network.
Blogs will continue to grow.
RSS is not dead.
We’ll focus less on social media and more on doing business on the social web.
Show me the ROI and stop playing games.

Posted on November 5, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

What were your top Tech Conferences of 2009?

So last night while at the Internet Summit pre-party I was chatting with Simon Cole @simonjcole, Meg Crawford @Postgrad and Tessa Horehled @tessa about what drives attendees for tech / social media conferences and what are the top conferences that people should attend in 2010. Most people would say it’s the content or the speakers that drive attendees, for me it’s networking.

As we start looking at budgets for next year people are already starting to plan what conferences they should attend in 2010. While talking last night we were listing conferences that were valuable to us such as SXSW and BlogWorld (of course) but then after that the list is wide open. I would also add my conference (The Social Media Business Forum ( http://socialmediabusinessforum.com ) #shamelessplug :).

With that being said, what were your top Tech Conferences of 2009 and why?

Posted on October 2, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

How are you using Google Wave? The comments talk.

A few days ago, I recorded a screencast of Google Wave and uploaded it to YouTube, then posted it here on Social Wayne. After the post a few lucky 100,000 users were granted access to Google Wave and reviews were written by both Louis Gray and Robert Scoble. As for the viewers of my screencast here on SocialWayne.com and YouTube it looks like they were left out but they still left comments about how they would use Google Wave. Below are a few of the comments.

Nathan Driver said:
I’m looking forward to it just from the POV of project management. The next level of desktop sharing for project management. Instead of multi-layering IM’s – it’s an all in one.

cloakanddagger31 said:
If I had a google wave invite, I would use to work with my training organization to collaborate on lesson materials and instructions. I also work with another non-profit and because i am in another state, I would use it for administrative projects, meeting minutes and program development collaboration. It is great, I just need to get more users to create a google account. Thanks for the? screencast Mr. Sutton, it’s nice to see a bro on here discussing tech work.

luanlessa13 said:
I believe this will be great way to collaborate projects. Atleast I’ll use primarily? for that.

rouleduke86 said:
That looks really cool. I’d use it for business primarily. It’d be great to coordinate the Google Wave collaboration features with a Skype call. Or, it’d be great? to have a video feature on Wave…

Eleanor Thorne said:
I think we could use this in the mortgage industry to show people live examples of their costs? I’d be worried about the security though – but I might see a way to use this in a practical business fashion… thanks

T3CK said:
If I had a Google wave account I would use the account to stay in contact with fellow blogger’s in my niche and I would also you use Google wave as a documentation calibration tool with guest blogger’s for my site.

Evan Roberts said:
Not sure what I would do with Wave just yet, the concept of real-time editing of documents or whatever in the form of “conversation” is interesting though. Thanks for this screencast for those of us who weren’t cool enough for an invite lol

The Google Wave Screencast:

If or when you gain access to Google Wave, I can be reached at : waynesutton@googlewave.com

Do you agree with the comments above? If you received a Google Wave invite, since Wednesday how are you using it?

Posted on September 30, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

A Google Wave screencast – If you had an account, how would you use Google Wave?

Here’s a lite Google Wave screencast. I may not be the best person for a screencast on Google Wave but since it’s like “Wave” day I figured why not to show everyone what they’re missing or assuming what Google Wave is and can do. Regardless take a look at the screencast and let me know in the comments if you had a Google Wave account how would you use it?

Update: If or when you gain access to Google Wave, I can be reached at : waynesutton@googlewave.com

Posted on September 22, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

Google announces push email / Gmail support with Google Sync, iPhone users rejoice!

If there has been one feature that iPhone users have been wanting natively without buying Apple’s mobile me service or using yahoo’s ymail is push email. Push email also has been one of the most requested features for the million of mobile Gmail users and today the wait is over.

Using Google Sync, you can now get your Gmail messages pushed directly to your phone. Having an over-the-air, always-on connection means that your inbox is up to date, no matter where you are or what you’re doing. Sync works with your phone’s native email application so there’s no additional software needed . Via Google Mobile Blog

According to the post push gmail should be rolling out soon. As an iPhone user who have seen a recent wave of push email apps such as Gpush and PushMail it will be interesting to see how Google’s announcement will affect these two services.

Thanks Google we have been waiting on this, well at least iPhone users have been.

Update: iPhone users looking to use Google sync with push email support go here: http://www.google.com/mobile/products/sync.html#p=apple

Posted on September 12, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

Tweet & you shall receive: Real-Time iPhone RSS push notifications. Superfeedr FTW! ->

Just the other day September 8, to be excat I was thinking that “I want real-time iPhone RSS reader app with push notifications to alert me when a blog updates on the second along with sms notifications” Well guess what, you know the saying “there’s an app for that” well now there is via an app called Notification [iTunes link $1.99] .

The Pitch
App Notifications is an iPhone app that acts as a client for the Apple Push Notification Service.
Use our ready-made Twitter, Gmail, and RSS notification services to instantly receive new tweets, search results, emails, RSS feeds, or create your own custom notifications with our simple REST API.

You may be thinking why do I need Notifications app. We’ll it depends on your industry, but here are a few examples how I would use it.

I want push notifications when a blog updates in real-time
I’m tracking an event, person, or tag and want to know when someone mentions them on Twitter
I want push notifications for emails sent you to me by certain people
If you’re a media company you could use push notifications for all of the above reasons.

So why is this special? Well, if you have read the RSS news lately, then you’re aware of the PubSubHubbub and RSSCloud technology that is turning RSS from a pull technology to a push technology. The Notifications app uses Superfeedr @superfeedr that uses a group of “helper” services to push RSS updates to the iPhone. Basically RSS is growing up in 2009. Why did it take so long RSS?

A big thanks to Julien @julien51 and the team. For more information on Notifications and how to configure it read the original blog announcement: Real-time RSS notifications on your iPhone

Now I’m making a list of RSS feeds that I want to be notified of instantly when they are updated. Any suggestions?

Posted on September 7, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

FriendFeed the home for geeks, real-time news and the RSSCloud back channel

It’s labor day and I thought things would be quiet online and in the world of FriendFeed. Boy was I wrong! Earlier today, I saw on FriendFeed first before any blog the news about the Spotify app available in the iTunes app store. Then if you follow any of the who’s who on FriendFeed, I’m sure you have seen the whole RSS is dead, long live RSS back and forth between Steve Gillmor and Dave Winer. Months have gone by proclaiming RSS is dead but by watching Dave’s Friendfeed post I knew he was up to something big and today it was announced; RSSCloud and the implementation of RSSCloud with Wordpress.com blogs and a plug-in for self hosted WordPress.org blogs.

For more on RSSCloud see the Read Write Web post: WordPress Just Made Millions of Blogs Real-Time With RSSCloud

I must say I’m glad to see FriendFeed still going strong after the recent Facebook acquisition. As for the RSSCloud news, personally I think it’s going to be a big deal being that CNN and other news outlets use Wordpress.com. Also in less than four hours we’re starting to see other feed readers implementing RSSCloud such as LazyFeed

PS: This is my first post after installing the RSSClould plug-in. Real-Time updates FTW!

What are your thoughts on RSSCloud?

Posted on July 9, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

99 problems with the iPhone but the battery ain’t one with these six attachments

There have been a few post recently about the disappointment with the battery life of the new iPhone 3Gs. I guess the upgrade Apple made wasn’t satisfying and people are still having to regularly charge their iPhone daily. But don’t worry if keeping your iPhone charged for a full day is your problem then take a look at one of the options below.

Incase battery back.

Mophie iPhone juice pack

Richard Solo battery

FuelTank battery

Thanks for the fueltank tip James Wong @communitymgr on Twitter

Kingston Kensington

IV from fastmac

There you have it folks a few battery options to keep your iPhone charged. As for the 99 problems, to me I think there’s only about three or four problems with the iPhone 3Gs now. A missing front face camera, Safari flash support, background applications and the AT&T exclusiveness.

As an iPhone power user, I have the incase iPhone extended battery. Do you have an extended iPhone battery? If so what brand and model.

– Post From My iPhone

Posted on June 19, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

Weekly Pitch: BabelWith.me a group translation chat room web app.

The Pitch
BabelWith.me is a simple chat tool that allows you to hold conversations in up to 45 languages. Invite your friends through Twitter, Facebook and email to join you in a conversation without language barriers. Or you can simply share your unique chat room URL anywhere you would like.

As users from around the world join your chat room, they’re given the option to choose a nickname and their language. Choosing any language other than English will immediately translate the entire chat room into the language they choose, including the chat log and all static copy.

BabelWith.me implements Google Translate’s API and runs on Google App Engine’s Python platform. This offers BabelWith.me great reliability and flexibility as we continue to add usefulness to the application and expand the opportunity for real-time, multi-language communication.

LifeChurch.tv is the non-profit organization behind BabelWith.me.

My first impressions:
I’m very impressed with the design and the usability of BabelWith.me, it’s simple and it works.
Will I use it?
Maybe, but I don’t have to many international conversations but a free group chat room is nice to have around.
What features I like?
The speed of the site, and social networking integration to promote your chat room.
What features would I like to see:
Although I haven’t spent to much time with BabelWith.me I would like to see a login profile linked to a custom permanent chat room name.

You can find BabelWith.me on twitter as @BabelWithMe

If you would like for me to cover your product or site please email: pitches at pitches at socialwayne dot com . Disclaimer:, I have no investment or relationship with the creators of this site. Thank you.

Posted on June 15, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

14 things I learned about Matt Mullenweg and WordPress at WordCampRDU

WordCampRDU 2009 Matt Mullenweg
Photo via WordCampRDU

This past Saturday, I had a chance to participate in WordCampRDU. Matt Mullenweg (Ma.tt), the co-founder of WordPress and AutoMattic, was the keynote speaker at the event. After WordCampRDU several of us had a chance to spend some time with him over burgers and bbq downtown Raleigh. Matt had my full attention, as I always try to learn as much as I can from successful individuals, especially those in the online/technology world. Here are 14 things I learned about WordPress and Matt. Some were new features of WordPress, while others were reminders about existing features that I hadn’t used.

1. VideoPress:
VideoPress is WordPress new video hosting feature. It costs $59.97 a year as an upgrade feature for WordPress.com users, but there is also a beta VideoPress plugin for WordPress.org users. You can custom design the VideoPress player and additional player branding features are on the way.

2. WP.com:
Matt recently acquired the domain WP.com and told the WordCampRDU crowd that it “may” become a tinyurl service for WordPress blogs. It’s something Matt has thought about, but he mentioned how spammers abuse existing tinyurl services. I’m confident that the WordPress team will find a way to implement this feature.

3. P2 WordPress Theme:
I’m not going to say Matt doesn’t like twitter but, have you really taken a look at the P2 Theme for WordPress? It’s not your normal blog theme. By installing the P2 theme you can have your own microblog platform with threaded replies. I use the P2 WordPress theme on http://smhustle.com. Search for other examples of P2 being used to see the many things you can do with this new theme or watch the video below:

4. Press This Button:
WordPress includes a Press This button under the tools section that allows you to blog from any web page. It acts like a bookmarklet for your blog.

5. Matt is a “stat-a-holic”:
Matt love stats. Just ask Matt about downloads of Wordpress 2.8, plugins being installed, or how much bandwidth his company uses and he can tell you the numbers off the top of his head. If math is required, he can calculate it easily on his iPhone.

6. WordPress for iPhone app:
You have to like a someone who’s honest about his own product. Matt mentioned in his keynote that he’s not a fan of WordPress for iPhone application and to expect a new version a few months after iPhone 3.0 OS has been released.

7. Matt is more than just WordPress:
At just 25 years old, Matt has already accomplished more than what some have done in a lifetime. With those accomplishments comes experiences and although Matt co-founded WordPress he sometimes would rather talk about other topics such as entrepreneurship and life. He told us a story about a talk he given about a man who had a perfect memory. If you ever get a chance to meet Matt ask him about it.

8. Matt is not the CEO of Automattic or WordPress:
I was writing a blog post on my iPhone blog and Matt kindly corrected me that he’s not the CEO but the co-founder.

9. It’s AutoMattic and not Automatic:
You get it it? It’s Auto”Matt”ic … nice one, Matt.

10. Matt is a forward thinker:
Matt is a forward thinker. We were talking about how the Kindle and the iPhone touch was ready a few years before public knowledge. Matt and the WordPress team are already working on making WordPress better to work with software and hardware three years from now. “If you start now you’ll be ready vs starting in three years and playing catch up.” Matt says.

Photo via Jason Keath

11. Matt is not a Mac guy:
Surprisingly, Matt doesn’t carry a MacBook around, but a Sony PC. He also started Palm users group back in the day. But he does have an iPhone now and most of the AutoMattic team uses Macs.

12. What Matt likes about NC?
Matt loves NC sweet tea. We tried to take Matt to one of our famous BBQ places but it was full. I think he still ordered BBQ, but I didn’t get a chance to see what he thought about NC BBQ vs other states BBQ.

13. Email a post to WordPress.com
Did you know you can create a unique email address for your WordPress.com blog and email post with attachments. You can even email .mp3 files to your WordPress.com blog and they’ll post and play automatically.

14. OpenID and Jabber:
WordPress.com is an OpenID provider and you can use your WordPress.com user name to for Jabber chatting. I think there’s something WordPress may have to turn on to get Jabber to work with your username, or it may be a user error on my part. But it does work. Update: Matt emailed me to let me know the way the WordPress Jabber account work is username@im.wordpress.com.

Overall all after spending a few hours with Matt, I left with the impression that Matt is one of the smartest and coolest guys in technology. He doesn’t get as much credit as he deserves for contributing to the success of others, and to the internet as an whole. Thanks, Matt, for creating an awesome platform and I hope we’re able to cross paths again soon.

Photo via Kipp Bodnar.

Also I did get a chance to interview Matt for the upcoming relaunch of WayneSutton.TV. Be on the lookout for the interview online soon.